Patriotic Democrats, Perversely Pragmatic AND Doggedly Resisting the Vichys, DINOs, Blue Dogs, Triangulators, and DLC Accommodationists.
And Still Dogging Joe Lieberman Until He's Festering in His Political Grave, of course.

Tuesday, May 9, 2006

Arthur Jensen Makes It All Perfectly Clear.

I know. It's hard. But I'm here to help; we're ALL here to help:

Don't understand why Hillary and Rupert Murdoch are buds? Unsure why the Labor Party's Tony Blair and the Tory George W. Bush are playing on the same team? Puzzled why the wonderfully articulate liberal Barack Obama and the neocon Vichy Joe Lieberman not only are in the same party, but are friends? [Feb. 15 '08: why deleted is here and here.] Scratching your head over the "coincidence" that every country that switches from trading oil in dollars to trading in Euros gets invaded (more on that soon in a guest post)? Unsure who the "Wall Street Dems" are, trying to figure out how Bill Clinton made the "mistake" of signing NAFTA without environmental or labor equality provisions, or what the DLC is and why I consider it even more dangerous than the GOP?

Do you want to find the True Religion, worshipping the Primal Forces of Nature?

Watch Network. It was all explained in 1976, but not everyone got the memo. Arthur Jensen will explain it to you. If you haven't seen the movie in the last five years, watch Network. Here's a clip, but you need to watch the whole thing. (The Netflix page is right here.)

Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?!

You think you have merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance!

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels!

It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today!

That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably deter- mined by the immutable by-laws of business.

The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr.Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality --one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.

Beale: But why me?

Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

Maybe I shouldn't have said friends. Certainly Hillary and Murdoch aren't "buds", either. Both relationships are strategic alliances.

But the question I keep raising (in other posts, not this one) still hasn't been answered: what business is it of Obama's, or any other sitting Democrat, to campaign for one Democrat over another in the primary?

Obama helped Duckworth win the nomination in Illinois even though she's not a sitting Dem, and her opponent was electable. He's backing pro-life, pro-Iraq Bob Casey, also not currently holding office, over Chuck Pennacchio in Pennsylvania. He meddled in the Hackworth-Brown primary in Ohio. He backs the "establishment" Dems over progressive challengers, which takes Democratic Party voters out of the loop. It may be how politics is done, but it pisses me off: it's not his job to influence the primaries, only to back the ultimate Dem candidate over the Republican.

In other words, I wouldn't have a problem with Obama supporting Lieberman if Lieberman wins the nomination again. But he has no business trying to shoot down Lamont before the primary, and his pattern of doing this -- not merely for incumbents -- makes him a bad guy in my eyes.

Please understand my goal, though: not to see Obama defeated when he's up for reelection, but to raise pressure on him to mend his ways.

I agree with thersites2. Obama has signed on to be a Hamilton Project Democrat (aka, Wall Street Democrat). Check out David Sirota's blog entry 11-30-05 about Hillary and her priorities. David also has a post about how the former Clinton people are hoping for their old White House jobs back and pursue losing strategies. Keep in mind that in 92' Ross Perot split the Republican vote and in 96' Bob Dole was the Republican nominee and he was a very weak candidate. In 92' the main focus of the early campaign was on Perot and Bush--Clinton wasn't even ON the radar screen until late in the game.

Sadly, Chuck Pennacchio severely lacks the funds to compete with Bob Casey. Even if Obama campaigned for Chuck, he'd still lack the funds to defeat an incumbent. Again, Pennsylvania is a relatively moderate state. Voters are NOT LOOKING for an extremely liberal candidate, or else they just might have elected one by now. Instead of a bigot who equates gay relationships with bestiality.

The mainstream media focuses on candidates who lag behind in fundraising, claiming that they "cannot win." This causes rank-and-file, uneducated voters to believe this wisdom and vote for the other guy, because the masses hate supporting a loser. This process is deplorable, but until you can somehow subvert the entire system by taking the newsmedia out of big corporations, Democrats are left playing the money game just the same.

By agressively fundraising during the primary, candidates increase the odds that they won't be derided by the MSM as un-electable. Agressive fundraising means bringing in the Democratic party's current best fundraiser, Barack Obama. Why is he the most effective fundraiser? Because the PEOPLE like him. He is an elected Democrat who the PEOPLE, across the country, outside of his own electorate, really like.

Hillary: people don't like her. (I live in New York. She's a fine Senator. Otherwise, she needs to chill out.) Ted Kennedy: people don't like him. Joe Lieberman: most people I know deplore the man. Chuck Schumer: derided as being a media whore! Dick Durbin: most Americans don't who he is!

Barack Obama: rank-and-file voters love him, even though (right now) they can't vote for him. They love him enough to give their cold hard cash to someone he supports. Barack Obama helps DEMOCRATS GET ELECTED. Do I need to explain to you how Congress works again?

If you GENUINELY believe that Pennaccio has a chance to fund-raise on par with Casey, then either a.) prove it by citing extensive, legitimate statistics and facts about fundraising and polls; or b.) give him substantial amounts of your money, encourage others to do so, and publicly praise those who support him in financially significant ways. I don't think you've done enough of that at this point to make your case.

It seems that the best polls for Pennacchio include a lot of respondants who don't know who he is. Why don't they? (Sing the Trump show theme song with me here, folks?) "Money, money, money, money!"